HEADS UP! We were just notified of factories retooling packaging lines (SHRINKFLATION

[FISH4BUGS]

You wish..............back during Carter's administration it was easy to get 10-15% interest on CD's. Can hardly get half a percent, these days. Use to pay cash for a new vehicle, every five years, just on my bank interest.

Winelover

Yeah....and I had a mortgage at 16% too.

[gwpercle]

I wonder how big all the packages will shrink to in 3 1/2 years .
16 ounce cans of stuff like tomatoes went to 15 3/4 ozs, then to 15 1/2 ozs , then 15 ozs , then 14.75 ...
the can of Diced tomatoes I bought Saturday ... 14 1/2 ozs !
When does it stop ... 2 oz. cans ?

5 pound bags of sugar went to 4 pound bags ... I'm afraid to look at them now .
I used to make a lot of Jams and Jellies for the holidays and had my recipes based on a 5 pound bag of sugar ... had to go and recalculate every blessed one ... what a pain ... I don't like doing math .
Looks like it's still 4 pound bags at wally mart ... Today !
Gary

[Land Owner]

Hog on the ground. One shot one kill. Cajun sausage. Nothing better. No inflation here. Renewable resources. Hunting season beckons....

[winelover]

Yeah....and I had a mortgage at 16% too.

Different strokes for different folks. Never had a mortgage........paid cash for the both houses I've owned. Never paid one red cent in credit card interest, either. It's all about priorities.

Winelover

[Omega]

Went to Wendys for breakfast and got some ketchup for my potato wedges, they gave me three or four packages. First one was normal, but when I went to open the second, it had two folds along the long ends. At first I thought it was a package that had somehow been misshaped by the machine, but the others where the same. I guess it would work as a money saver if the workers wouldn't give you a fistful when you ask for them, I constantly have to tell them only a couple.

[reddog81]

The "New and Improved Packaging" trick. What they leave out of the marketing is that they shrunk the size of the product by 10% to 15%.

[Bulldogger]

What I seem to be experiencing is much more grease in the bottom of the pan when I cook a pound of bacon Sunday morning. When I smoked my own bacon the recipe said to keep it warm on the smoker a while until some 10-20% of the lard rendered, so the bacon would be less fatty.

I wonder if Smithfield and others are giving bacon less treatment, so as to make less of the starting product volume lost, and so they still weigh one pound but you end up with a cup of grease instead of a few TBsp...
Bulldogger

[jonp]

Any family on food assistance or welfare also got Big cans of Peanut Butter Gee wonder why with Carter being a peanut farmer.

We also got powdered milk, big blocks of cheese and other stuff. My mother always was first there or last to avoid people knowing we were on govt assistance.

[MUSTANG]

What I seem to be experiencing is much more grease in the bottom of the pan when I cook a pound of bacon Sunday morning. When I smoked my own bacon the recipe said to keep it warm on the smoker a while until some 10-20% of the lard rendered, so the bacon would be less fatty.

I wonder if Smithfield and others are giving bacon less treatment, so as to make less of the starting product volume lost, and so they still weigh one pound but you end up with a cup of grease instead of a few TBsp...
Bulldogger

It's not just Smithfield on the bacon. Fat content for the Kirkland Brand at Costco has visibly increased over the lat 18 months. We also prefer to buy Daily's brand at Costco because there was more visible meat and thicker cut - it too also has visually increased fat content over the last 6 months.

[Gewehr-Guy]

Years ago the lard was worth more than the sowbelly. When I have a lot of grease from frying bacon, I strain the grease through a couple layers of cloth into a canning jar. Makes for some good cooking grease.

[jonp]

Bought a bag of popcorn the other day that used to be 5oz. Now the bag is the same size but filled with air and has 3.5oz in it. I need to go on a diet anyways

[Thundarstick]

A pound is a pound, an ounce is an ounce, but a dollar isn't always a dollar! Think about that.

Pigs, pork, bacon. We have a couple of sausage factories in this area, and this area is a major pork producer for the nation. The trends in the past was get out the fat, so hogs where bread to be lean! Nearly all the sausage was getting too dry! Now there's a trend to breed more fat back into the hogs! I attend church with the fella that's responsible for spice procurement for one factory, and was complaining to him about how their sausage was so dry I had to add oil to the pan to cook it. He said their recipe hasn't changed, but the hogs had! I make nearly all my sausage at home now, but getting fat for a sausage I like is sometimes an issue.

[Daekar]

I am glad to see the extra fat in sausage. Not only does it taste better, but it signals that people are finally starting to become aware of the bad science which has dominated the nutrition conversation for 50 years. Carbs cause heart disease and diabetes, not fats, and despite the mainstream science community the evidence is mounting steadily.

I cook most things in olive oil, butter, or bacon grease now, and my food has never been better.

[MaryB]

What I seem to be experiencing is much more grease in the bottom of the pan when I cook a pound of bacon Sunday morning. When I smoked my own bacon the recipe said to keep it warm on the smoker a while until some 10-20% of the lard rendered, so the bacon would be less fatty.

I wonder if Smithfield and others are giving bacon less treatment, so as to make less of the starting product volume lost, and so they still weigh one pound but you end up with a cup of grease instead of a few TBsp...
Bulldogger

Most producers have gone to a wet cure, they pump it full of brine and that adds weight to it(you are paying for salt water), that is the white stuff you see cooking out at first and a lot of the initial liquid.

I just bought a fresh pork belly and it is getting a dry cure, it won't be pumped full of salt water. Dry cure bacon tastes so much better!!!!

[farmbif]

kind of like a can of coffee is no longer a pound, next time you see it in the store, maybe it will have 10 ounces in it. and the price is up just to give the bean counters some added fun.

[GONRA]

During WW II U.S. & A. collected (typically) a weekly soup can of fat/lard/etc. for the War Effort.
GONRA's family was unbelievably frugal - we seldom had any fat to collect!
It was all used in cooking, popcorn (from our Victory Garden) etc.
Worse yet, Mom was a Dietitian. "Spices are the work of the devil...."
NEVER EVER WANNA SEE SPAM AGAIN!

Really didn't know wot food was SUPPOSED to taste like
until half way thru High School when Pizza was invented.